Chapter 7 #2
“Rest now, tesoro,” I whisper. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
When I straighten, Elizabeth’s watching me, her face streaked with tears, but her eyes steady. There’s fear there, yes, but also understanding. She doesn’t have to ask what I’m going to do next. She already knows.
Because this isn’t grief anymore. It’s vengeance.
The snow is still falling when I arrive at the warehouse. Elizabeth is on her way to my house with ten men at her side. And my poor, sweet Sienna is probably in the morgue by now.
They have him tied to a chair in the warehouse with his hands bound behind his back, blood seeping through the fresh bandage on his shoulder.
He’s young. Late teens maybe early twenties.
Hard eyes, jaw clenched like he’s still trying to play the tough guy even though his life’s already over.
My men stand on either side, silent and waiting. The air smells of oil and cold metal.
I take my time. Remove my coat. Roll up my sleeves. The concrete floor groans under my shoes as I circle him.
“You know who I am?” I ask quietly.
He nods once, defiantly. “Conti.”
“Good,” I say. “Then you know lying won’t save you.”
His mouth twitches, a faint smirk. “Nothing’s gonna save me anyway.”
I study him for a long moment. “Then you understand what happens next.”
I pick up the small folding knife from the table beside me. It’s nothing dramatic, just clean and efficient. The sound of the blade snapping open echoes through the room.
Cesaro shifts beside me. “We pulled his phone. Found messages from a burner. He says he doesn’t know who hired him.”
I don’t look at Cesaro. My attention stays on the man in the chair. “Who gave the order?”
He shakes his head. “You’re going to kill me. Why does it matter?”
I step closer. “You misunderstand me. Death isn’t the punishment. Death is the mercy.”
He goes still.
I crouch down in front of him, our eyes level. “You shot my daughter.”
For the first time, something flickers in his expression. “It was supposed to be the other girl,” he mutters.
“Other girl?”
“The blonde. The roommate. That’s who they wanted.”
Every muscle in my body goes still. “Elizabeth?”
He nods once. “Said she was leverage. I don’t know why.”
Leverage.
The boy isn’t finished yet. “Someone bumped into me. That’s how your daughter got hit.”
He says it so casually, like his mistake didn’t ruin my entire fucking world.
I stand slowly, forcing my voice to stay calm. “Who sent you?”
He hesitates too long and I drive the knife into his hand. The blade sinks through his flesh, pinning him.
He screams. “I—I don’t know his name! He was Italian, but not local. Said you’d know who he worked for. Someone called Il Macellaio.”
Cesaro exhales sharply behind me. “Son of a bitch.”
I step back, letting the words sink in. The Butcher. I haven’t heard that name in years. Not since Naples, since before Sienna was born.
“Take him apart,” I tell Cesaro quietly. “Get everything. Anyone he’s met. Every message. Every dollar that passed his hands.”
Cesaro nods once, already pulling on his black gloves.
As I turn to leave, the man in the chair calls after me. “You think killing me brings your daughter back?”
I stop in the doorway. My voice is calm, almost gentle. “No. But it’ll make sure no one forgets her.”
Then I walk out.
The sound that follows isn’t loud, but it’s final. The dull, heavy crack of something breaking, and the echo of a man’s scream swallowed by the snowstorm outside.
My world stills as I’m driven across town, back to my penthouse. But my mind—God, my mind won’t stop.
The same questions churn over and over. Someone killed my daughter. But she wasn’t the target. Elizabeth was. Why? Who would want to hurt her? Or was that punk just lying to save himself?
The car pulls up to the building, and I sit there for a moment, staring at the glass doors glinting in the snow. My hands are clean, but they don’t feel clean. They never will again.
Inside, the penthouse is too quiet. The faint scent of smoke lingers from the fireplace, mingling with the sterile sting of disinfectant that still clings to my skin.
I expect Elizabeth to be asleep—she should be, after what she’s been through—but she’s standing by the fire, her arm wrapped in fresh gauze and she’s lost in thought.
When she turns toward me, it’s like she already knows the answer.
“Did you find the man who…” Her voice wobbles. “Who hurt her?”
“Yes.”
The word lands between us like a stone dropped in water.
She nods slowly, eyes flicking toward the floor. “And?”
I take a step closer, unbuttoning my coat but not removing it. “He’s dead.”
Her gaze snaps up. “You—”
“He killed my daughter,” I cut in, voice sharp. “There was never going to be a trial.”
She flinches at that, but she doesn’t look away. “You killed him.”
“I gave the order.”
The distinction means nothing. We both know it. Silence stretches between us, filled only by the crackle of the fire. The light paints her face in shades of gold and shadow, softening the fear in her eyes, replacing it with grief.
“Did it make you feel better,” she asks finally, her voice barely above a whisper.
I don’t answer right away. I move closer instead, until I’m standing a few feet from her.
“No,” I admit. “Nothing will make me feel better again.”
She exhales shakily, tears catching the light. “Then why do it?” I want to reach out and brush the tears from her cheeks.
“Because I can. Because men like him—men who take what’s mine—need to learn there’s a price for it.” I say it without flourish, because there’s no room for anything else right now.
She swallows, eyes rimmed red. “And me?”
“What about you?” I answer, and the question hangs between us like a verdict.
Her chin trembles, but she doesn’t back away.
“I don’t belong here, Lorenzo. I never did. And now that Sienna is…gone, what happens to me?”
My name on her lips stops me cold.
Not Mr. Conti. Not sir. Not the cautious distance she usually hides behind.
Lorenzo.
It lands inside me like a blow. Sharp, intimate, and far too human. It hits the part of me I keep buried with concrete and steel. The part that hasn’t heard his own name spoken with anything but fear, respect, or anger in years.
For a long moment, I just look at her.
At the way the firelight flickers across her hair, making her glow in a room built for ghosts. At how small she seems in this space that swallowed Sienna whole. At how fragile she looks and how strong she still stands despite everything she’s endured.
Something twists deep in my chest—dark, ugly, desperate. A thing I don’t dare name because naming it would make it real.
She shouldn’t say my name like that. Soft. Wounded. Trusting me with something I don’t deserve.
She shouldn’t look at me as if I’m someone who can keep her safe when I couldn’t even keep my own child alive.
And yet I can’t remember the last time hearing my name didn’t feel like a knife. But from her it feels like a plea. A tether. A reminder that I’m still a man beneath the monster.
And that destroys me more than any bullet ever could.
“You stay here,” I say at last. “Where it’s safe. My men will guard you around the clock. You don’t go anywhere without me.”
She blinks, confusion and something like hurt rippling through her expression.
“Lorenzo, you don’t have to do this,” she whispers. “You can send me home. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”
“I do.”
The word comes out flat. Iron. Final. I don’t soften it with gentleness I don’t have. I don’t pretend this is a request. It’s a sentence. One I have every intention of enforcing. She cannot leave my home until I know she’s safe.
Her brows pull together, a small crease of worry forming between them. I’ve seen that look before—on Sienna, when she wanted to fix something she had no power over. The memory slices through me so violently I feel it in my ribs.
We stare at each other, the air between us thick and choking. The fire snaps loudly in the grate, one burst of flame leaping upward, casting her in gold and shadow. It feels like it’s mocking me. Like even the damn fire knows my life has split open and everything inside is burning.
And then it settles. A glow. Embers.
Just like what’s left of me.
My voice barely comes when I speak again.
“Will you pick out an outfit for Sienna to be buried in?”
Her breath catches, but I push forward, hollow and numb.
“You know what she’d like best.”
The words echo in the vast room, swallowed by stone and silence. Saying them feels like ripping the last thread holding me together.
Her lips part but no sound comes out. And in her eyes, I see it. The moment she realizes I’m not asking because I need help. I’m asking because I can’t do it myself.
Because choosing clothes for my dead daughter will break me in a way even bullets never could.
And because—God help me—I trust her to honor my child more than I trust myself.
I turn to leave, but she whispers behind me. “I’m so sorry she’s gone.”
I nod once, not trusting my voice to do anything but promise more violence in the hours to come. Because sorry doesn’t change the fact that Sienna’s gone.
Outside, the snow keeps falling. Inside, I move because there is work to be done.